King City Vol. 1Review

Share.

Coolest. Cat. Ever. No, we're not joking.

By A. E. Sparrow

Sometimes when I see an OEL (Original English Language) manga arrive on the review pile, I have a knee-jerk reaction to put it on the bottom of the stack. My problem with OEL's in general are that they're not really manga in my eyes. Oh they might be great stories, but to me they're still indie books that got a lucky break by getting the good people of Tokyopop to publish them.

However nine times out of ten I end up eating my words, because some of these OEL manga are truly worthy of your attention, whether I want to be a snob about it or not. King City definitely falls under that category, and you should consider it a worthy purchase the next time you visit the bookstore on a manga run.

Joe's recently returned to King City after undergoing some sort of training - we're not too sure what kind but it seems to involve a lot of thievery and espionage. Looking to pick up the pieces of the life he left behind, he begins taking on the odd contract to earn money, using a particularly useful cat as his tool. Yes, you heard right - cat. As in four paws, claws and a propensity to meow a lot&#Array;but did you know they can also pick locks? Duplicate keys? Even function as a weapon? I own two cats, and all they seem to do is eat and run away from my dog. I had no idea they led such secret double-lives.

Brandon Graham's artwork is about what you might expect from an independent press book, walking that fine line between comical art and panels with a more serious tone to them. If this style moves you towards the book or away from it is irrelevant, because Graham's writing deserves the true praise here. I found myself wishing this was a book, not a manga, as the artwork almost seems to get in the way of things. When Joe thinks about his ex-girlfriend in this way: "That girl used to put glue in her hair and jump on the bed and taste like grape candy. And how do you get over that?" How indeed? When we finally do meet said girlfriend, Anna, we get the impression that everything he's said about her is true, and then some.

King City isn't a manga. There, I said it. What it is, however, is a hell of a good story if you're looking for a very loose take on the cyberpunk genre, with enough action and humor to keep you thumbing through the pages until the end. And why not take the time to do the handy crossword Graham put in there while you're at it? Budding OEL creators might also want to read the ending snippets about Graham's overall artistic methodology. Those of us who've been slowly breaking our lower backs hunched over a drafting table might do well to try doing a page or two as he sometimes does - on the fly, anywhere, at any time. After all, as he puts it "It's all about the love between you and the page." With so many books these days forgetting to show that love, it's refreshing to pick up one that at least tries to on every page.